There are so many kinds of ornamental gardens out there. Container Gardens, Formal/Informal Flower Gardens, Rock Gardens, Water Gardens, Wild Flower Gardens, etc. Which do you choose? The beautiful thing about gardening is that you have the freedom to choose whichever style you like. It’s a creative outlet for me anyways. Here are some ornamental garden ideas that may inspire you.
How To Plan An Ornamental Garden
The first thing that I usually do is find the right location. And this can depend on if I would like full sun, part sun or shade.
Then I may take a stroll around the yard and try to visualize the ideal spot for my garden. I’ll look around my landscape and try to think about what types of plants will compliment what I already have in my yard.
Once I find my spot, it’s border time. It’s time to determine the size and shape of my border.
This is my favorite part because at this point, I’m pretty excited to put my vision into action by breaking open that soil with my shovel. A useful tool for this part is an old garden hose. I’ll use it to shape out the border. This way I can keep tweaking it until it’s the perfect shape that I’m looking for. Then I’ll start to go along the hose with my shovel and just make a line in the ground.
Once the garden bed is all traced out, I turn my attention to the ground where my finished bed will be. Hopefully it’s descent soil but if not, we can still make it work. I usually start with a flat shovel and begin to remove any grass that may still be there.
After that, it’s time to aerate the soil. There’re special tools you can use but I just use a regular shovel (not a flat shovel for this). I go all around the bed breaking up the soil. I’ll go in with the shovel for a big scoop of dirt, then turn it over and chop it up with the shovel. This way is time-consuming but it works well.
Then I’ll take some good compost and add it to the soil and go along with the shovel mixing it all together. I’ll also add in a few bags of Miricle Grow Gardening Soil and mix that in as well. Then go along with a hard rake and make sure the bed is nice and level all over.
By this point I usually know what I’m going to do for a border. Either leave it as is, or add some stones or bricks and make a little border wall.
After that’s done, I call in the boss (my wife) because she really has a great eye for plant placement and what plants will look good together. We will place them in their spots and tweak them till they’re just right. Then we begin planting.
And another thing to think about is whether you want to use some kind of weed barrier. Most of the time I don’t worry about it because I use a lot of pine straw to mulch around the plants. This really helps to keep weeds from popping up all over and I think that it looks real nice too. But if you want you can lay down a weed barrier between the plants underneath the mulch or you can lay it down first, under the dirt before you even start aerating the soil.
They sell it in rolls at The Home Depot or Lowe’s or sometimes I’ll use newspaper if I happen to have some lying around. Some people even use cardboard. Both of those options are biodegradable.
But I Don’t Have Eough Yard…
That’s OK, what about a container garden? There’s so many advantages to having all of your ornamental in pots or planters. As long as you do some research on each plant to know what kind of soil conditions it prefers and how often to water.
If your area is expecting a hard freeze, you can move your potted plants inside of your home or into a greenhouse. And you will need to learn which plants like to be root bound in a pot vs. in the ground.
One thing for sure, most plants don’t like to be water logged so always choose a pot with drainage holes or add some if it doesn’t have any. But at the same time you don’t want the soil to be too dry (unless it’s a cactus or succulent) so always check the soil with your fingers and add water if necessary.
Get Inspired – Get Creative
The first example that I gave you was your basic garden. The second idea can be used for patios, doorways, and small yards. But there are so many other ideas out there on sites like Pinterest and YouTube. People are always getting creative and trying out new ideas. It’s nice when they share these ideas online for us gardening enthusiasts to enjoy.
That’s actually my mission with this blog website – To take the gardening tips and tricks that I learn along the way and share them with all of you!
What kind of gardening do you prefer? Please let me know in the comments below.
And as always, thank you for reading. Please share with your friends on social media!
Cheers!
Billy